…

After almost thirsty minutes, a crocodile's giant body could be seen laying on the ground. Next to it was the abomination of a horse still resentfully at Dante.

As the crocodile's corpse was too heavy, they had pulled the horse toward it, leaving a long trail of blood…

"I, will start. My work." Dante's way of speech was getting messier and messier, as if he was slowly degrading.

The otherworldly hue from before reappeared, the crocodile's flesh started tearing itself and slowly wriggle its way toward the horse. The horse's eyes, seeing this, started tearing up, tears of blood flowing out of them…

As the crocodile's flesh started attaching itself to the horse in many ways like entering the body by the small gaps, eyes and mouth, the horse's eyes slowly lost their lusters.

After a while, a cocoon of flesh appeared around it. From the base of the cocoon, tendril expanded and moved toward what remained of the corpse.

The more Sylph observed this phenomena, the more weird she felt about Dante.. He clearly showed symptoms of memory loss, but at the same time, showed knowledge unheard of.

He suffered from split personalities too. To her, Dante was just a mess of a person..

While observing this creepy and morbid scene u fold, she asked in a monotonous voice, as if not at all perturbed by it.

"How much time does this need?"

"Maybe, ten to fifty. Day. Maybe. Month. First, time, me. Do, this.."

"We can't just leave it here, other predators will probably attack it."

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When she asked her question, she saw Dante's eyes turn red.

"Oh about that, we can ask Skully to guard it until the flesh starts to rot, nothing would like to eat something full of diseases.

It's not sure if Skully will be able to protect it but hey, life is a gamble anyway." As he said that, he lifted his hand in a shrugging position.

"Why is life a gamble?" She asked confusedly. She was but a child, terms like these of course alien to her.

"Sylphie, an exemple I could show you is literally before you're very eyes haha!" He put one hand on his chest and point d the other toward her.

"Had you not been training there, poor me would have surely died at the hands of those ravaging wounds. I have made a mistake before, a grave one, not living life to its fullest!"

While talking, he grabbed one of the very long tendrils and started dancing with it. Such a morbid scene didn't faze the white haired girl.

"Even your life was a huge gamble no?! Those pieces of crap could have captured you had you not been strong enough no? Imagine your life as someone's else toy! You've gambled your life for getting stronger!"

His eyes started getting redder and redder, as if a fire was being ignited in them. He made his way toward her and grabbed her head on both sides, covering her in blood marks.

"Look her Sylphie, you saving me has been on of the greatest things that could have happened to me! How stupid was my past self! If I could, I would beat my past self to death!

How could I let go of such an interesting world! So many things to explore! So many things emitting light! So many to extinguish.."

Dante's last sentence made her shiver, it didn't feel like a statement, it sounded so confident.. As if it was destined to happen…

"Why would you want to extinguish light…?" While looking in his glowing eyes, she monotonously inquired.

"Haha! I wonder too!" He let go of bloody but beautiful face and made his way toward the road they had taken to come here.

Sylph looked at his slowly disappearing figure for a long time, thinking about something only she knew before following behind.

…

-

{Statue:

Talent: N/A

Attributes:

Strength: F+

Agility: F+

Mana Pool: C

Mana quality: ?

Dexterity: F+

Intelligence: B-

Magic: E

Stamina: E+ (E)

System appraisal: {You maybe able to beat up a goblin…}

System Skills: [???], [System], [Appraisal], [Everlasting Evolution].

Skills: [Self-Healing (Mutated)] [Cold Blooded] [Fortress of scales (Mutated)] (New!)

Per Bond: 2 , [???], [Skull]

Current status: ,

mana exhausted,Ċ̷̙͑̂̍̈͂͘̚͠͝o̴͎̙͔͔͈̼͗̈́̎̂̿̉͋ŗ̷̼̗̰͖̘̗̠̈́̈́͋̽̃̑̀͌̾͛̉͋͜r̸̭̤̗͈̐͒̂̈́͒ü̸̜͇̿̈͋̈͗̈̐̈́́̋ṕ̸̨̨̪̯̰̜̥͒̑̓ͅẗ̵̺̮͈́̀͗̂i̴̢̢̡͇̜̱̼̤͓̙͍͒̑̕ọ̶̅̇͛n̷̦̭̭̭̜̜͋́̅̂̃. ???}

-

"System, what does that corrupted thing mean?" Dante asked internally.

{You have been exposed to the void for extended periods of time. This status however can't be predicted and is unknown to the system.}

"You're really useless."

{It is what it is :]}

While having an internal conversation with the system, Dante tried to do push ups but could only make a few before crumbling on the floor. Completely breathless.

It has been a few days since he had started this routine of waking up early, jogging around the academy and finally do some body musculation exercices.

Nothing particularly interesting had happen for the last five days.